Thomas, Now that I've laid out the actual position physics takes with respect to FTL, my plan for space games has been to throw out general relativity and time travel, and add FTL instead. In other words, any universe I build that has FTL in it is probably going to be a simple, ordinary, cartesian, newtonian universe as most people would understand it. In this kind of universe, light might still travel at a certain speed, but there's no light speed limit and no paradoxes or time travel problems like you'd get in a relativistic universe.
To address the FTL problem with inertia, I'm going to be using the 'stutterdrive' concept: when your ship goes FTL, it spontaneously disappears from one place and reappears in another. There are no inertia problems because you're not actually accelerating. If you do a thousand of these tiny jumps per second, it looks like you're moving smoothly, even though you're just jumping around really fast in space. To handle the energy problem associated with this, I'm going to declare that the energy required for each jump is some minimal amount plus the gravitational potential difference between the two jump points. This means that for jumps into a star system, you might actually end up getting energy back from the hyperdrive, though I'll probably just make it inaccessible to players for various plot reasons. In order to limit speeds, declare a maximum rate at which any drive can be used. Explain it away as "it takes one millisecond for space to flatten out after doing a jump, so you have to wait that long before doing another one." The final plot device is to give the stutterdrive different distance quanta based on the depth of the gravitational field it's in. In interstellar space, you get one maximum jump distance of some amount that makes it feasible to go between stars. As you enter the deeper gravitational field of a star system, declare that the jumps suddenly get shorter, so that detailed maneuvering in the star system is possible. As you get closer to a planet, have another change in the jump size to let you maneuver there. It's a neat setup that I've thought about for a long time. It's got a consistent framework even though it's a bunch of plot device handwaving, and as long as you've got a consistent framework you can build other stuff on top of it. Dennis Towne Alter Aeon MUD http://www.alteraeon.com On Mon, Aug 13, 2012 at 12:57 PM, Thomas Ward <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Phil, > > True, but FTL is as yet in opposition with known physics. As I > understand it nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. It is > the great constant in physics. There are tacions that move faster than > light, but nothing else in known physics can do it. > > The other problem that makes FTL implausible is inertia. How exactly > do you go from 0 KPS to 300,000 KPS without the people inside the > spaceship being smashed into jelly? > > My point being while FTL is common place in books, movies, and video > games no one has a clue how to get around the laws of physics and make > it truly plausible. That's why it is called science fiction. :D --- Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [email protected]. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://mail.audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [email protected].
